May 14--Dear Elder: Mother's Day and Thomas's Birthday Report

 Dear Elder,

Just a quick note before the deadline for getting a letter sent to you today. We had a nice Mother's Day and Thomas's birthday yesterday. I was the first person to wish Thomas a happy birthday, which was nice. Miriam and Katrina made me a very nice birthday breakfast consisting of an omelet, yogurt, almonds, apples, and a strawberry smoothie. It was delicious. Miriam also washed the dishes last night which was so nice! I got the whole house clean and the laundry done already today, largely because of her nice kick-start with the dishes. Thomas was, indeed, ordained a teacher yesterday and was also set apart as the secretary in the teacher's quorum. We are so glad that he is worthy to be a teacher in the Aaronic priesthood.

After church we got to Skype with Jon and talk to Cassandra on the phone. It was so nice to talk to them! Jon says he gets to meet a lot of people and they like him, but they don't really like Americans in Canada. He will be moving into dorms on Tuesday. I hope that will be a good thing. I think it will. Cassandra and Lily were on their own this weekend since Emerson had to work 12 hour days at the plant. It was sad because he had planned a big Mother's Day date for Cassandra that they weren't able to do because when there's trouble at the plant, everyone has to drop everything and go to work. They meet for lunch sometimes so that Lily can see her daddy since he leaves for work before she wakes up and gets home after she is in bed. They are hanging in there!

Getting to talk to Cass and Jon was a very nice Mother's Day gift. I wish we could have talked to you, but I know it wasn't possible. My gift from you is getting your emails every Wednesday. That really makes our week! Another nice gift I got yesterday was a nap--yesiree, Bob. I slept forever. In fact, when I woke up and saw that it was 7:03, I thought the clock was broken. But it wasn't. When I got upstairs, Grandma's visitors were already over and the party was in full swing. We sang happy birthday to Thomas and made sure Grandma got lots of watermelon and good conversation.

Last night, Dad and I went on a walk and I talked to Grandma H. on the phone. She had a very nice mother's day. She liked the card I sent her, and we had fun talking. She and Dixie are going to Oregon soon to see Great Grandma S. who is about as bad off as Grandma C.

Well, that was our day yesterday. I'd better get this off or you may not get it today. I love you! I hope you got my package! The whole family is praying for you and is happy you are liking the MTC.
Have a great day!

Love,
Mom

Our New Arrival

Ways that having Sally here is like having a new baby

-She has to be changed,

-She has to be fed,

-We worry and fuss over her,

-When we give her milk to drink, sometimes she blows bubbles instead, just for fun,

-After watching "How to Train Your Dragon" for the first time, she began purring like the Dragon in the movie.  We took her for a walk, and she purred her tongue the whole time.  If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn her wheelchair was motorized.

Ways that having Sally here is NOT like having a new baby

-No one congratulates us on our new arrival,

-No one says she's so cute,

-Lifting her is not fun,

But then again...

-She doesn't cry,

-She doesn't keep us up all night,

-And most importantly-- Although we don't know what the future will bring with her, we do know that she WONT grow up to be a teenager!!!!

Once again, the good outweighs the bad :)

Can We Do This Without Me?

Well, it has been quite a week.  On Friday Brian’s mother, Sally came to live in our home.  Also on Friday my parents came to visit for 5 days.  The reason for my parent’s visit was to accompany Matthew when he went through the LDS temple for the first time.  That occurred last night and was one of the happiest experiences of my life, se eing my son worthy to enter into the temple of God and make sacred promises of righteousness to Him.

My parents also went to Katrina and Thomas’s play, Beauty and the Beast where Katrina played “the aristocratic lady” and Thomas played “Le Fou.”  The kids did a wonderful job, and my sister, Sarah and her family along with my sister Elizabeth also attended.  Everyone was quite impressed with their work. Miriam was in a festival the day my parents arrived and we got to see her do that, too.  Her choir won for the whole festival!  My parents really enjoyed listening top her sing.  Jon was also at home for the weekend, which was so nice.  He, Brian, Thomas, and my dad worked on Jon's car.  They found out that he needed new tires.  It was deceptive because the treads looked okay, but were coming off of the tire in some places.  Weird.  Anyway, they got new tires.

I don’t know how I would have made it through the last few days if my parents hadn’t been here.  Not only did they help Jon with the cost of the tires, my mom has helped me restore the house to order after the upheaval of switching around rooms in order to make place for Sally, and my dad helped me with the heavy lifting, and since Sally can’t move her left side, there is a lot of that.  I have done more physical work in the past week than I have done for years, and it is quite a chore.

Still, we have had our laughs.  The other day Sally told me about someone who told her to go to “H-E-Double Q.”  I cracked up laughing on the inside.  Then there was the first time my dad and I tried to use a lift to hoist Sally from her bed.  We had no idea what we were doing, and Sally’s conversation rambled aimlessly as we turned and tugged and pushed at her, until she spoke up loudly saying, “Can we do this without me?”  My dad and I laughed quite a bit about that, and I told him that I wanted out, too.  Sally’s question sticks in my mind and I find myself asking, especially when her care becomes a strain, “Can we do this without me?”  It keeps me laughing on the inside.

Caring for Sally

We are busy these days getting Sally’s house to rent and keeping her comfortable and happy in the care and rehab center.  We also are constantly dealing with the insurance company who denied her any physical therapy after she left the hospital.  We appealed the denial and won the appeal, but they continue to deny us every week or so.  This last week, our appeal was also denied, and now we have to make a second appeal.  It is a process meant to wear us out and make us give up.  Most other insurances automatically give 100 days of rehab, but Sally has bought the worst insurance available; all the social workers say so.  It is Blue Cross/Blue Shield Med Advantage.  Still, Heavenly Father continues to comfort me, and I try not to worry about that end of it; Brian and his siblings are doing a good job of taking care of things.  When Sally does leave the care center, she will be living here with us if possible.  We are willing to take care of her, but want her to have as much physical therapy as possible before she comes so that she can have a good quality of life for the rest of her days.  Is that too much to ask?

Learning, Visiting, and Going to Meetings

Lately I have been learning my duties as stake young women first counselor.  I have also been visiting Brian's mom daily.  One day this week, I had two meetings for stake young women.  The kids really helped me out with cleaning (one meeting was here at the house) and cooking.  While they made dinner, I read the four conference talks that I had been assigned to read before the evening meeting.  The dinner was delicious! 

Sally, The Sabbath, My Sustaining

Sally is doing a bit better today, and we are so happy about that!  It looks like she may be able to leave the hospital.  We don't know for sure, of course, but we have great hope.
Brian was with her a lot yesterday, including stopping by on our date, and then again today for 6 hours.  I expect we will go see her as a family again later tonight.  Now, Brian is coming home to crash.

Because he was with his mom, I taught Brian's Sunday school class.  The lesson was on Adam and Eve and the fall.  It went pretty well.  It is a big class and they are really talkative, especially the girls.  It is hard to keep their attention. The boys, actually have been quite reverent.  I think they like having Brian for a teacher.  He has lots of stories about the army, his mission, etc.  They did pretty well for me too, though.  Thomas is in there, and it's fun to teach him.

 In Relief Society we talked about George Albert Smith and how loving and giving he was.  One lady raised her hand and talked about a time when they were discussing how to help kids be reverent in primary, especially the really energetic ones.  One of the leaders said to imagine Christ holding that child and imagine His love for them.  As she was talking, I began imagining different sisters in the room being embraced by Christ.  I imagined the love He had for each person.  Then I imagined the same thing about others in my life who are not so easy to love.  Tears came to my eyes as I felt the deep love He must have for each person I imagined.  It was a wonderful experience.

Last week I was called to serve as the first councilor in the stake Young Women's presidency.  Today I was sustained by the wards (congregations) in the stake (a stake is a group of wards or congregations).  It is a big responsibility, and I will miss working with the eight to eleven year old girls.  It is interesting, though, because many of the girls I taught at that age are now young women, and I will have the opportunity of serving them again.  The most exciting part, of course is being able to serve my own daughters!  I'm especially happy to be going to girl's camp with them this year.  Miriam has already given me tons of ideas and pointers for camp.  I keep telling her that the camp committee decides all the activities for camp, not me, and not to count on much help from me.  Still, she has really great ideas, even Katrina said they were awesome, so I guess I'll be ready if anyone asks my opinion.

Sad Times

We took the kids to see Sally in the hospital again today.  I'm glad Jon is home for the weekend so that he could see her last night.  It is very sad to watch her decline.  The nurses continue to prepare us in case we lose her, and the night vigils have begun.  Today she was able to say "I love you" to each of the kids, and I think she was listening to what they had to say,  but its hard to tell.  Brian will stay with her tonight, and we will bring the kids in again tomorrow.  I wish there was more we could do.

Sally's Stroke

Brian’s mom, Sally, had a stroke yesterday.  She was driving her car when it happened, but she was blessed to not hit or hurt anything or anyone including herself.  Drivers nearby watched her erratic manoevers and pulled over to help.  They recognized the sign of a stroke and called the paramedics who took her in an ambulance to the hospital.  After much convincing, she allowed the doctors to give her TPA, the drug that if taken within the first three hours can help reverse the symptoms.  Yesterday, considering the circumstances, she was quite a happy camper.  She loved being in the hospital surrounded by doctors and nurses talking about her medical history, family history, and anything else she wanted to say, plus having the undivided attention from three out of four of her children. 

Today, not so much.  For one thing, her left side is not responding.  She can’t move her hand or foot.  Yesterday she could hold up both her left arm and left leg for 10 seconds each.  She also hasn’t woken up much, then again she’s always been a hard one to wake up. The nurse called us at five this morning to let us know of her worsened symptoms and to let us know that they were doing an MRI right away.  Brian went over then to be with her.  Now he’s at work and I’m keeping her company while she sleeps.  The doctor is at this moment reviewing the MRI and will hopefully be in soon to tell me what’s up.  Brian’s sister, Renee should be here any time which will be nice.

Well, since I last wrote, I talked to the doctors who were very disappointed by Sally's unexpected relapse.  They told me that she will in all probability never regain the movement she has lost.  The nurse said the staus quo will be no more.  The hope we had yesterday is gone, and the news is heart breaking.